Photo: Kate Stone Matheson, Unsplash
Don’t Hustle-Culture Yourself Into An Early Grave Like Gary Vee!:
We Americans all love us an underdog.
Somehow, a Rocky Balboa or a 13 colonies rose up to fight a superior enemy and won.
And what did those underdogs do?
Among other things, they found good ways to catch up!
Well, for a long time !SCIENCE! thought that sleeping-in on weekends to catch up on any loss was useless.
!SCIENCE! was wrong, and a team from China just entered a new addition to Tony Schwartz’s big statement that sleep is even more important than food…
The Short Answer:
- Successfully playing catch-up is something all champions can do.
- Rocky vs. Creed, Colonies vs. England, you name it.
- Many people thought you could not catch up on sleep.
- A new study shows they were wrong.
- ~91,000 people were tracked over 14 years for sleep debt or excess.
- Those who got the most extra sleep had a 20% lower chance of heart disease than the lowest sleepers.
- These numbers were between 1-16 hrs/week deficit for the deprived, and the opposite for those who slept-in on weekends.
- 22% of the subjects were chronically sleep-deprived.
- That means a lot of people can get a ton of benefit with some changes.
- Previous research has shown at least 8 more areas in which improved sleep can improve your health.
- And another set of studies showed that you don’t have to wait for the weekend.
- Naps can improve your health, productivity, and alertness as well all across the week.
- So sometimes it turns out some Old Wives’ Tales are true and can really improve your health!
- Just don’t listen to the wingnuts who say lemon in your coffee is a cure for everything from bunions to serious disease.
Read on to find out the details…
→ Show/Hide Table Of Contents ←
!SCIENCE! And Other Nerds Said You Can’t Stock-Up On Sleep:
So we all know that Sleep is one of the building=blocks of a healthy life.
But for the longest time, the idea of “stocking up” on it was relegated to myth and Old Wives’ Tales.
(Even the China team admits there wasn’t a whole lot of data to start out with either.)
Both recent studies and one of my old bosses thought that the weekend catch-up was just not possible.
A UK Biobank Study Says It Might Be Possible:
But they were wrong. Take that, computer boss-guy! :P
In a study over 14 years that looked at almost 91,000 subjects, researchers examined the benefits of catch up sleep.
One of the best parts of the study is they used data from the very well-respected source, The UK Biobank.
What they found is that those who got the most catch up sleep on the weekends were 20% less likely to die of heart-disease than the most-sleep deprived.
The two groups compared as-follows:
1) Most Under-Slept had as much as 16 hours of sleep debt across the week.
2) Most Well-Rested had as much as 16 hours of extra sleep over the minimum.
The Potential Benefits Are Huge:
Still more impressive than that is all the results held equally for both men and women.
The results held true even despite the data all being self-reported.
And if the marquee header of, “20% LOWER RISK OF HEART DISEASE!!” wasn’t good enough, here’s another super-important point.
Sleeping in on the weekends can help A TON of people.
Because almost 22% of all the subjects were classifiable as sleep-deprived.
BOOM!
Previous Studies Show At Least 8 More Benefits:
And just to add a little bit to the Further Reading portion we like to include with everything here at HT if we can.
Here are a few more of the other VERY important things that good sleep, and now cathing up on weekends, can improve about your health.
1) Obesity
2) Insulin Sensitivity
3) Metabolism Speed
4) Immune Problems
5) Inflammation
6) Chance of Getting Colds & Flu
7) Productivity
8) Stress
The rest of that list including other things like alertness can be found over at the Sleep Deprivation Dangers post.
Awesome Part Deux, It’s More Than Just Weekends:
One more thing.
The current work was done on weekend catch up sleep.
But what if you could solve that another way without waiting?
Dr. Sara Mednick asked that question and found that Naps during the week are probably just as good; -especially for productivity!
So now you have all the ammo you need, except the time-slots, to go out and take back the health benefits of sleep!
Be well.
References & Links:
• Source: ESCardio
• More Coverage: HT – Sleeping In On Weekends
• Preliminary Presentation:
• ESC Congress, 2024
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